English Dub Review: Bullet/Bullet “Episodes 1-8”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Set in a wasteland-like future, a boy named Gear (Caitlyn Elizabeth), a gambler named Shirokuma (Peter Giles), and a robot named Qu-0213 run a small business where they return stolen items.  When a girl named Noah (Amanda Turen) comes to them with a request to steal something for her, Gear and his friends find themselves caught in a world-changing situation.

Our Take:

There’s nothing more satisfying than a quest to do a good deed, particularly returning those that were pilfered.  However, having to steal one is an adventure in itself, even in a post-apocalyptic future.  This defines the latest ONA series from Sunghoo Park, notably known for directing The God of High School, Ninja Kamui, and the first season of Jujutsu Kaisen.  Following his experience with adapting anime involving martial artists and demons, Park utilized his expertise to develop an original anime that features some of the thrilling aspects we expected from his earlier works.  However, instead of releasing the season in its entirety, Bullet/Bullet was released in separate blocks, starting with the first eight episodes, with the remaining four episodes scheduled for release next month.  

Given its 12-episode count, I was expecting the first half to be six episodes long, but eight episodes seemed suitable enough for me to grasp its concept further.  The concept, in particular, revolves around a young boy and his small crew, consisting of a polar bear and a multiple-personality robot, who lead a business involving the return of items that were wrongfully stolen in a poverty-stricken city.  But when a mysterious woman named Noah arrives at the scene with a special mission, the trio find themselves over their heads, as they’re accused of stealing the city’s company’s prized possession: a cassette tape that holds a key to the world’s salvation.  This resulted in them heading beyond city grounds and joining forces with Noah to deliver the tape to the Capital, a mission that Gear’s idol, Road the Street Racer, failed to accomplish.  Meanwhile, the company’s boss, Barrel (Liam O’Brien), sends a guild of distinctly deranged assassins to retrieve the tape.

In a way, the concept is somewhat reminiscent of Mad Max, but with a robot with multiple personality disorder and a talking polar bear.  Well, technically, the latter is less of a talking polar bear and more of a former police officer from the Capital turned gambler in a bear costume.  When it comes to execution, Bullet/Bullet is no different from other post-apocalyptic projects, mainly in its themes involving poverty and the class system.  For the latter, the group finds itself in the middle of a battle between the Resistance and the government, which is responsible for dividing the human race, with one side residing in the Capital and the other living in poverty.  This puts them in a race against the clock to expose the truth to everyone, though the end result is far from pleasant.

The plot is formulaic to a fault, but based on the first eight episodes, Bullet/Bullet is also surprisingly entertaining, thanks to the English dub voice cast and the characters’ chemistry, particularly Caitlyn Elizabeth as Gear and Peter Giles as White Bear.  The animation by E&H Production was also impressive in its ability to envision the show’s post-apocalyptic future and action sequences.  The most notable sequences were the car chases involving Gear’s trusty vehicle, Bullet, which were well-handled by car action director Shin Misawa, capturing the excitement and thrills of being pursued on the road, much like George Miller did for Mad Max: Fury Road.  The first half may have concluded on a downer note, but in regards to everything else, the first eight episodes of Bullet/Bullet provided the action and thrills viewers would expect from Sunghoo Park’s previous works.